A variant is suspected of fueling an alarming outbreak in Thai prisons.
Inmates last week at a field hospital for Covid patients set up at a prison in Bangkok.Credit.Department of Corrections, via Associated Press
May 13, 2021, 6:04 a.m. ET
A variant of the coronavirus is sweeping through Thailand’s prisons, the country’s chief prison doctor said on Thursday, as the government acknowledged that nearly 3,000 inmates had been found to be infected.
The chief prison doctor, Weerakit Harnpariphan, deputy director general of Thailand’s Department of Corrections, did not identify the variant that had been detected. But protective measures that were effective in the prisons last year, he said, are not working well now.
Thai protest leaders on hunger strike getting weaker, lawyers warn Students awaiting trial for criticising ruling monarchy in pro-democracy demonstrations
Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 19:20 John Reed in Bangkok
A protester holds a kite with an image of pro-democracy activist Parit ‘Penguin’ Chiwarak during a demonstration near the Grand Palace in Bangkok in March. Photograph: Varuth Pongsapipatt/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Two of the leaders of the Thai democracy protests that raised explosive criticisms of the ruling monarchy last year are on a hunger strike and in worsening health, according to their lawyers and relatives.
Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak and Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul have been refusing food in prison in Bangkok in recent weeks to protest against Thai judicial au